Weekend Birding: Sora

Last week I had the opportunity to go on a birding field trip to a nearby State Park followed by brunch and some bird conversation. This was a small, experienced group of birders so I was hoping to see birds I don’t usually find on my solitary walks.

One of the tricks to locating birds in the field is to know their call. I still need work in that area but the people I was with were able to identify elusive birds by their sound. One of those birds was the Sora, a water bird found in freshwater marshes. It likes to hide among the cattails, making it very difficult to observe or photograph.

We were standing on a bridge over the wetlands when we heard the Sora’s distinctive call. Everyone ran to the railing trying to locate the bird. Suddenly it poked it’s head out of the grass and one of the group spotted it, but the bird soon moved back into the cattails.

We continued listening for the sound, which is a very distinctive, descending whinny call. Eventually the Sora came out into the open again for a few minutes. Most of us threw caution to the wind and climbed the fence along the bridge to get a good look and take a few photos. I should have taken a some pictures of everyone climbing the fence because it was quite a site to see, but in my excitement over finding an elusive bird, I stayed up on the fence watching the Sora and shooting pictures as long as possible.

There must have been a tasty morsel of food in that green water to entice him out for a minute or so allowing me to get a great shot.

The Sora can be found across most of North America in the summer and they migrate to the southern US and Mexico in the winter. They are a common bird, but live and breed in shallow wetlands with lots of emergent vegetation. Their greatest threat is the destruction of the freshwater marshes and are rarely seen in populated areas.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.

The club doesn’t have any formal instructions but they do organize about 100 local field trips a year, most of them led by volunteers. Some of the trips are specifically aimed at new birders. I’ve found that seeing and hearing the birds with experienced people to point them out is the best way to learn.

I especially love the light and colors of the grass in the first photo.

Leslie, I finished reading a book this week called Little Night; it’s really about family problems and domestic violence, but one of the characters is a birder and blogger living in Manhattan. She studies the birds in the parks.

That’s so awesome that you were able to get photos of it – especially that last one! You should have seen my cats when I played that bird call. Their heads whipped around and one of them started licking his chops. They are indoor kitties, but evidently they have big dreams. 🙂

A lot of the bird clubs have field trips aimed at beginners and often you can join them even if you aren’t a member of the club. That’s how I started. I saw a small article in the local paper about an upcoming bird walk and just showed up!

I started taking a 14-week bird-watching course last week. I was told, just like you’ve said here, you’d hear their calls before seeing them. So, we’re to be very quiet and alert to listen to birds, learn to ID their calls first. Your photos are lovely, very close and clear. That’s another thing I learned. It’s so hard to take a good photo of them.

Finding birds becomes much easier as the leaves fall off the trees so you’re taking the class at the right time. Backyard birds are fairly easy to photograph and much more approachable than the ones out in the woods. Without the zoom lens I’d never get clear shots.

It can get time consuming watching and waiting for all those birds so I can see why a lot of retired folks take up the hobby… they have the time! We do have a fair number of young birders too, which is nice because they hear bird sounds before the rest of us do.